Some Reflections on the Russian Idea Suggested by the Reading of Nivat's Vers la fin du Mythe Russe

Abstract

Nivat's book' is a collection of essays on a vast array of figures and topics Gogol to our days, written and in part published during 'seventies in response to particular publications or other occasions of that period. The fact that, as presented here, these various essays create a unity of effect is evidence of informing power of ideas, especially when rendered in graceful language. The reader of this book comes away delighted by his long converse with an intelligence that not only disposes an encyclopedic fund of facts but also is able to relate one thing to another so as to find-sometimes, perhaps, to produce-a pattern in carpet. To establish such patterns in Russian literature of last two centuries is especially challenging; few established categories can be observed, and a dubious classicism quickly decomposed into a spurious baroque; no clearly defined romantic period exists, and realism must always be qualified by such terms as lyrical, romantic, or fantastic. The great works of Russian literature, as Nivat puts it, 6chappe a toute definition de (p. 279). This Russian sense of freedom from genre patterns is demonstrated in familiar paradox that Pushkin called his verse masterpiece a novel, while Gogol called his prose one a poem (no3Ma). And Tolstoy, a realist influenced by Rousseau (!), wrote a great novel intended to demonstrate a theory of history. The great figures of twentieth century-except of course for those housebroken to Soviet categories of writing, and they only imperfectly-display equal insouciance concerning boundaries of form and style. Bely wrote in a prose genre but astonished early reviewers with strings of dactyls and anapests. Rozanov and his scion, Sinyavsky, wrote works that touch boundaries of many genres. Pilnyak, often called the first Soviet novelist, produced in his greatest work, The Naked Year, a potpourri of genius. The